Confederacy Victory
by Tassel630
Summary: -All canon- "Edward beat Alice at chess, and then I played Jasper. He buried me." Bella, Eclipse, Page 57. Exactly how badly did Bella lose during that chess game?


**A/N: I have always been curious as to what happened during Jasper's and Bella's chess game at the beginning of Eclipse. Perhaps you'll only be as interested if you're a chess geek like me, but even if you think chess is absolutely stupid, please read this anyway, at least FOR THE HUMOR! I tried not to include too much chess jargon in here...**

**If you've read some of my other things before, you'll probably see that this is not my best piece. If you haven't... erm... This is absolutely amazing! (coughcough)**

**And by the way, this is dedicated to mustangfan29 and Ninja C. It is because I lost a bet against mustangfan29 that I have to write this.** **(Well, not exactly a bet... never mind, it's hard to explain.) And mustangfan29 is also my wonderful beta, who attacked this with a sledgehammer and got it so that I would allow it to be seen in public. Ninja C is special because she came up with the last line, and if that last line was not awesome enough (or at least, I think it is) to deserve a chance in the light, this probably would be stuffed in the trash.**

**Oh yeah, and if you've ever heard me talk about Jasper's Oneshot, this is it.**

**And now we have contestant #43958349 in today's episode of The Lamest Disclaimers Ever:**

**Disclaimer: I don't own Jasper, Bella, Alice, Edward, Chess, the Confederacy, or strawberries. Although what strawberries have to do with this, I have no idea.**

"But I've never played before!"

"Do you know the rules?" Edward asked.

"I've got the gist from watching you, but-"

"If you're really as bad as you say you are, then it won't take that long," Alice pointed out.

"Fine," Bella huffed, exasperated and resigned to a quick loss. As she dropped into the chair across the table, her sweet scent washed toward me, stronger than before. I had just hunted the day before, though, so it wasn't as hard as I had feared to ignore the venom pooling in my mouth. _Edward resists her all the time, _I reminded myself. _You can survive for ten minutes. _

She sized up the chess board between us, starting to feel slightly apprehensive. I nudged her closer to 'calm,' and she made a face at me, annoyed but amused at the same time. "You're going to win without messing with me. You might as well get on with it."

"I can't," I said, grinning. "You go first."

"Why?" she complained.

"Because you're white. White always moves first in chess."

She scowled at the board. "Um…" Feeling slightly reckless, she randomly grabbed a pawn and scooted it forward one square, glancing up at me to make sure she was doing it correctly. I kept my face impassive, my emotions reined in. She was nervous, now. Beside her, Edward was leaning his arm on the table, trying to keep his amusement off of his face. Alice, next to me, was pouting that she had lost her chess match to him.

Swiftly and surely, I moved out a knight. Chess reminded me of my former life as a major in the army. I even occasionally used the same tactics that we had learned as confederates during a game. I had been good at it, knowing exactly under which circumstances the different tactics should be used, although I had never actually fought except for one small skirmish. Sometimes I wondered if the outcome of the Civil War might have been different, if so many southern soldiers had not been lost to the vampire wars…

My newest sister contemplated the knight I had moved with furrowed eyebrows, then scooted her pawn forward another square. Its death was quickly followed by her disappointment and annoyance. I felt slightly guilty about that, but Edward was so amused by his girlfriend's poor chess skills that I smiled, too.

She moved another pawn forward so that it was diagonal to my knight. An obvious threat. I decided to test her, to see how well she really knew what she was doing.

I moved my knight forward and out of danger, flicking another white pawn over with my black piece. I wanted to see if she would notice that not only was I threatening her queen, but I was easily reachable by her bishop, which she could use to capture my piece while keeping the queen safely hidden.

She stared at the board for several minutes, obviously not wanting to move the queen into the open already, before her face lit up and her concentration changed to triumph. She took my knight with her bishop feeling slightly smug.

We continued playing, and I picked off a few more of her pieces before her emotions changed. The hopeless, resigned undercurrent was still there, but predominantly she was feeling… sneaky? I glanced at the board, where she had carefully arranged a trap. A single rook stood, seemingly unprotected, in easy range of my queen. However, her queen was ready to pounce as soon as the rook was clear.

I decided to pretend to fall – conditionally – into her fairly simple snare. I exterminated the rook with my less obvious bishop. Then came the reward of my experiment: Bella, frustrated and thoughtless, took the bishop with her queen. As soon as she gestured for me to take my turn, she realized what she had done. Edward shook his head at her mistake, and my queen took the place of hers.

After her single failed attempt, she seemed to give up. _Well, we can't have that. _I snickered internally, and pushed a wave of impulsiveness and daring onto her. She bravely – or stupidly – moved out her king to confront my remaining knight. I shifted my rook to force her away from the knight - "Check" - and began slowly driving her king into a corner.

"Checkmate," I said. The game had lasted less than ten minutes – and I was sure that at least five of those minutes had been devoted to Bella's long thinking periods between turns. She wasn't very disappointed – she had known who would win from the beginning, needing none of Alice's help.

"It's alright," Edward told her, although he was smirking. "Jasper always wins, except against Alice and me. Something to do with his military training."

I flashed my teeth in a wide grin. "Don't mess with Texas."

**A/N: So yeah, not my best work, but hopefully it was good enough to make you snicker at least once.**

**If you want to know what I'm doing next, I'll be extending "The Defeat of Lord Voldemort" into "101 Ways to Defeat the Dark Lord." You won't see me in the Twilight fandom for a while (with a title like that, can you figure out why it might take me a while?) but I promise you that I WILL return. (Haha, that sounds so ominous. I WILL RETURN.)**

**Vote in my poll! Do you want Bella to become a vampire? It's currently exactly 50/50!**

**Sorry, I can't respond to reviews. Any pressing questions I'll answer on my profile. However, I always make sure to rifle through the work of all my reviewers... (hint, hint.)**

**Thanks for reading, and have a nice life.** **XD**


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